


(8. Frail) / The Weight of the World on his Shoulders

by Mothfluff



Series: GO-ctober Prompts 2019 [8]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Angst, Gen, M/M, October Prompt Challenge, One Word Prompts, be warned, mentions of war and torture and such but not explicit?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-08
Updated: 2019-10-08
Packaged: 2020-12-02 00:47:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,252
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20953250
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mothfluff/pseuds/Mothfluff
Summary: My attempts at an October Challenge, basically using the original Inktober prompts for drabbles.(Each prompt will be posted as part of a series, not chapters, so I can add tags/characters/ratings/trigger warnings for each instead of the whole she-bang)Prompt 8 - FrailCrowley had been broken many times over, during the endless timeline he called his life. Aziraphale had born witness to it almost as much.He hadn’t seen the first moment of many, and both of them silently thanked whomever for that, forever thankful that the angel had not seen him Fall, had not seen his wings burn and tarnish; the iridescent sheen drip from his face like melted gold; the black tears stain his face that had turned into a screaming mask, the utter helplessness and pain of it all.He’d seen more than enough since.





	(8. Frail) / The Weight of the World on his Shoulders

**Author's Note:**

> here’s some angst! Which I’ve barely done for the GO-fandom before, but you never really unlearn the whole ‘causing pain with words’ thing, right?

Crowley had been broken many times over, during the endless timeline he called his life. Aziraphale had born witness to it almost as much.

He hadn’t seen the first moment of many, and both of them silently thanked whomever for that, forever thankful that the angel had not seen him Fall, had not seen his wings burn and tarnish; the iridescent sheen drip from his face like melted gold; the black tears stain his face that had turned into a screaming mask, the utter helplessness and pain of it all.

He’d seen more than enough since.

He’d seen him walk in silence alongside Cain, who’d been doomed to wander alone and without a home; for something he did not know not to do, something he could not have prevented, something no one had taught him was wrong until he did it, and then taught him in the most cruel of ways. Something that had been so new, so unbelievable, that even the two immortal creatures had stood above it and had only been able to stare. They knew of death, in theory, they knew about animals falling into a sleep they never returned from. They did not know of murder.

They would know it far too well in the coming millennia.

Crowley could not bring himself to face it. His fellow demons would indulge in it, tearing humans into pieces any chance they got, relish their pain, offer him to share, and he would turn, find some excuse, some explanation why he could not, would not. They had not seen the first of it. They had not seen a face full of blood, covered in the tears of his brother over him, begging him to open his eyes again. Maybe things would be different if they had.

(They would not be, and Crowley knew, and yet could not face it.)

Aziraphale had to watch him break in the face of misery again and again.

He saw him on the shores that had only just before been a sandy hill, looking onward from the boat that rocked gently like a lullaby across the crashing waves. Saw him standing there, a child’s hand in his, so many more behind him, begging, crying. Knowing that soon enough even he would not be strong enough to hold them aloft. Knowing that soon enough he would have to let go.

He saw him with his head held up high, lips pressed into a stony line, staring into the blinding sun just behind the cross that bore the dying body of that young man, the one that had given even a demon hope, the one who’d been so new and so different and so kind that he’d believed, for a fragment of time, that things might be different.

They were not. They were never.

Aziraphale saw him break, when slaves were tortured, when innocents were sacrificed, when war made monsters of men, again and again and again and-

He saw him hurt, walking the streets covered in leather robes, the plague doctor’s mask hiding his face, the heavy gloves hiding his fingers that were beginning to blacken and burn, from the illness maybe, or from too many miracles, too much healing, more than a demon should ever give out.

He saw him pained back at the heart of the world, where the story had begun with the birth and ended with the death of Christ, when more and more were slaughtered in his name, when the city and its people crumbled under the weight of righteous war. When unknowing children led themselves to their death in a last attempt to save something that didn’t need saving.

He saw him brought to his knees when faced with the silent pleas of thousands of hungry, in the country he’d been banished from centuries ago by yet another righteous agent of what they believed was God. He saw it again and again, in many countries, in many centuries, the endless hunger and pain of the people forgotten, ignored, shunned.

He saw him screaming, begging, fighting in two wars that were meant to end all wars, but by now they both knew that it would never end, that humans would never learn. He saw him fight on when it was already too late, saw him carry people to safety that could not be saved anymore, saw him hold and sway the little ones he pulled from rubble until their breath stopped, and so did his sway.

Aziraphale saw him fall, from hope, from losing his grip on the few humans he’d held dearer than most. From watching a young, stubborn, hopeful woman burn for her faith. From watching another be shackled, ridiculed, beheaded for not being what others wanted her to be, for not fulfilling every demand her husband had had of her, however impossible. From watching many more rise, and fight, and persevere, only to be struck down and destroyed in the end. Again and again. Aziraphale saw him fall, through the eyes of others, through his own memories.

He saw his shoulders slumped, his face grey and empty for every commendation he received for things he did not do, could not do, would not do. Things that people believed were all his doing. Things that burned in his memory as if they had been his fault after all.

Aziraphale saw a tiny speck of it, a twinge of the endless pain he’d witnessed so often, when they stood under the canopy of the bandstand. When he had to throw these lies into his face, of not caring, of not liking, of not wanting.

When the last thing Crowley’d held dear, the one thing he’d had for good in this neverending world of bad, told him he was not, and never would be.

A demon was heartless, he had been taught, and had hoped it not to be true for this one, for his one. Or maybe it was true because his heart had been shattered, again and again, in an endless cycle, until it was nothing more than fragments, splinters leftover from a whole that had been punished more than it had ever deserved.

And he’d been responsible for its last punishment, the one hit that sent every splinter fly apart and cut deep into the rest of him, cut him into pieces and left him to bleed out.

Aziraphale had seen him break, and he had broken him.

So he made it his mission to heal.

Aziraphale had seen it in his face. When he begged him to leave together. When he saw him return, nothing more than an apparition, but with it a tiny piece of hope, of sunshine in his darkness.

There was hope. There was hope and wishful thinking and dreams of a future. After everything, it was still there. All it needed was a hand to hold, just as he had held so many, a voice to guide it, as he had tried to guide. And Aziraphale could be all that. Would be all that.

It didn’t matter how many touches it took, how many soothing words, how many confessions and professions of love. How many sleepless nights and tear-stained shirts and shaking hands. He would love and protect and cherish and heal and give, give all that Crowley had lost and mourned over six millenia.

And if it would take another six millenia for the demon to heal, to grow and mend and feel safe and unbroken, then that is what Aziraphale would give.


End file.
